The Normans.
The Norman Conquest is marked by no great change in English clothing,
the conquerors inclining towards the island fashions, as we may see by
the fact that they gave up their curious habit of shaving the back of
the head. But with the reign of the second William came the taste for
the luxury of clothing and that taste for flowing hair and shoes with
sharp points which is lamented by William of Malmesbury. In this reign
we have the story of the Red King refusing to put on boots that cost but
three shillings--the price of an ox--and wearing the same gladly when
his chamberlain told him that they were a new pair worth a mark. Even
more than the fashion of long cloaks and trailing gowns whose sleeves
hang far below the hands, the fantastic boot and shoe toes bring the
curses of the clergy and the moralizings of chroniclers. Fulk Rechin of
Anjou is said by Orderic to have invented such gear to hide the
monstrous bunions upon his toes, but a worthless Robert, a hanger-on of
the court of William II., distinguishes himself and gains the surname of
Cornard by stuffing his shoe tips with tow and twisting them like the
horns of the ram.
12th and 13th centuries.
There are many illuminations which give us in plenty the details of all
costumes of the 12th century. Thus the devil in a well-known MS. wears
the gown of a lady of rank, the bodice tightly laced, the hanging sleeve
knotted to keep it out of the mud. A MS. at Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, shows in a picture of the vision of Henry I. that the men who
reap and dig are simply clad in loose skirted tunics with close sleeves,
that they have hats with brims, and cloaks caught by a brooch at the
shoulder. Hats and caps are common in all classes and take many
shapes--the Phrygian cap, the flat bonnet, the brimmed hat and the
skull-cap.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--A Lady and a King (temp. Hen. III.). (From
Cotton MS. Nero, D. i.)]
With the coming of the house of Anjou English dress clears itself of the
more fantastic features of an earlier generation. Henry II. brought in
the short Angevin mantle and from it had his name of Curtmantle, but it
was not a mastering fashion and the long cloak holds its own. Rich
stuffs, cloth of gold or silk woven with gold, webs of damask wrought
with stripes or rays and figured with patterns are brought in from the
ports. Rare furs are eagerly sought. But the simplicity of line is
remarkable. The drawings made for Matthew Paris's lives of the two Offas
show people of all ranks clad without a trace of the tailor's fantasy.
Kings and lords, churchmen and men of substance go in long gowns to the
feet, the great folk having an orphrey or band of embroidery at the
somewhat low-cut neck (fig. 27). Some of the sleeves have wide ends cut
off at the mid-forearm, showing the tight sleeve of a shirt or smock
below. Fashion, however, tends to lengthen sleeves to a tight wrist, the
upper halves being cut wide and loose with the large armholes
characteristic of most ancient tailoring. Over this gown is worn an
ample cloak fastened at the neck with a brooch or clasp, and sometimes
fitted with a hood. The dress of the common folk and of men of rank when
actively employed is a tunic which is but the gown shortened to the
knee, a short cloak to the knee being worn with it (fig. 28). Belts and
girdles are narrow and plain, the thongs without enrichment, showing no
beginnings of the rich buckles and heavy bosses of a later fashion.
Shoes and low-cut boots are slightly pointed, and hats, caps, hoods and
coifs of many types cover the head. The women are like to the men in
their long gown, but the head is wrapped in a coverchef hanging over the
shoulder and bound with a fillet round the brow. Gloves are common in
this age; "scraps of the cloth or the skin," says a poet, "do not want
for a use: of them gloves are made."
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Labourers (temp. Hen. III.). (From Cotton MS.
Nero, D.i.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--A Group of Clerks (early 14th century). (From
Royal MS. 19 B. xv.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--English Ploughmen of the 14th century.]
14th century.
At the court of Edward II., son of a king who went simply clad, Piers
Gaveston and his like began to set the fashions for a century which to
the curious antiquary is a garden of delights. For the history of the
14th-century clothing illuminations are supplemented by a number of
effigies upon which the carver has wrought out the last details, by
monumental brasses, and by contemporary literature and records (fig.
29). Garments take many shapes; sleeves, skirts and head-dresses run
through many fashions; while personal ornaments are rich and beautiful
to a degree never yet surpassed. With the beginning of the century there
is seen a tendency to shorten the long gown, which had been the best
wear of a man of good estate, to a more convenient length, although the
knees are still well covered. Loose sleeves falling below the elbow
leave to view the sleeve of an under-garment, buttoned tightly to the
arm. In winter time a man's gown will have long sleeves that cover the
hands when the arms are at length. The full cloak, although still found,
is somewhat rare among a people that has, perhaps, learned to wear more
clothes and warmer upon the body. Hoods are worn in many fashions, to be
cast back upon the shoulders like a monk's cowl, the part at the back of
the head being drawn out into a "liripipe" long enough at times, when
the hood is drawn up, to be knotted round the brow turban-fashion (fig.
30). Long hose are drawn up the legs to join the short breech, and the
toes of the ankle-shoes are pointed so long that holy men see visions of
little devils using them as chariots. The women love trailing gowns.
They have under-skirts and loose over-garments, sometimes sleeveless.
Their hair at least would not shock those earlier prelates who cursed
the long plaits, for it is caught up in a caul or braided at the sides
of the head. In the second half of the century men of rank borrow from
Germany the fashion of the _cote-hardie_. In its plainest form this
short tunic, covering the fork of the leg, is cut closely to the body
and arms (fig. 31). Sometimes the sleeve ends at the elbow and then
another streamer is added to the one which falls from the hood, a strip
of stuff continuing the elbow-sleeve as low as the coat edge. This strip
and the hem of the skirt are often "slittered" with fanciful jags, a
fashion which soon draws down the satirist's anger. Parti-coloured
garments were an added offence; a gentleman would have his coat parted
down the middle in red and white, with hose of white and red to match.
Men and women of rank wear a twisted garland of rich stuff, crown-wise
on the head, set with pearls and precious stones, a fashion which is
followed on the great helm of the knights, being the "wreath" or "torce"
of heraldry. The dames of such as wear the _cote-hardie_ imitate its
tightness in the sleeves and bodices of their long gown. A curious
fashion which now begins is the sleeveless upper gown whose sides are
cut away in curved sweeps from the shoulder to below the waist, the
edges of the opening being deeply furred. The strange head-dress with a
steeple-horn draped with lawn kerchiefs makes its appearance to shock
the moralists. Although it was probably a rare sight in this century,
the horn could easily fulfil its mission of drawing notice to all its
wearers.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Sons and Daughters of Edward III. (From his
tomb in Westminster Abbey.)]
Of the _cote-hardie_ it might at least be said that it was the symbol of
a knightly age in arms, the garment of a man who must have hand and
limbs free, and, save for its sleeves, it faithfully copied the
coat-armour of the armed knight. The softer days of Richard II. are
remarkable for a dress which has also its significance, men of high rank
taking to themselves gowns of such fulness that the satirists may be
justified who declare that men so clad may be hardly known from women.
The close collar of these gowns rises high as the neckcloth of a French
_incroyable_, the upper edge turned slightly over and jagged. The full
skirts sweep on the ground, which is touched by the last jags of the
vast sleeves, whose openings, wide as a woman's skirts, are dagged like
the edges of vine or oak leaves. "And but if the slevis," says the
satirist, "slide on the erthe, thei wolle be wroth as the wynde."
Sometimes this gown is slit at the sides that the gallant may the better
show his coloured hose and tips of shoes that pike out two feet from
heel to toe. When not wearing the gown such a lord would have a
high-necked coat, shorter even than the _cote-hardie_, but looser in the
skirt, the sleeves ending full and loose with dagged edges turned over
at the cuff. Hats are more commonly worn in this century, and in its
latter half take many shapes, a notable one being that of a shortened
sugar-loaf or thimble with a brim turned up, either all round, or, more
frequently, behind or before. The long shoes, as their name of
_crackowes_ or _poleynes_ implies, were a fashion which, by repute, came
from Poland, a land ruled by the grandfather of Richard's first queen.
When medieval fashions were past, they were remembered as a type of the
old time, and a certain French _conteur_ begins a tale of old days, not
with _jadis_, but with "In the time when they wore poleynes." Even
parish priests, whose preaching should "dryve out the daggis and alle
the Duche cotis," went, in this age of fine apparel, gaily clad in gowns
of scarlet and green, "shape of the newe," in "cutted clothes" with
"long pikes on her shone." More than this, they made scandal by ruffling
with weapons--"bucklers brode and sweardes long, bandrike with
baselardes kene." The skill of goldsmiths and craftsmen decorates all
the appurtenances of the dress of this 14th century. Buttons, which
appear in the first Edward's time as a scandalous ornament on men of low
degree, have now become common, and, cunningly wrought, are used as much
for _queintise_ as for service. A close row of them will run from wrist
to elbow of tight sleeve. A row of buttons goes from the neck of a
woman's gown, and the _cote-hardie_ may be fastened down the front with
a dozen and a half of rich buttons. A purse or gipciere hung by a ring
to the girdle gives more room for ornament in the silver or brass bar on
which the bag depends. Above all the girdle, which--in harness or in
silk--rich men wear broad and bossed with jewels across the thigh below
the waist, makes work for the jeweller's craftsman. Such a girdle is for
great folk alone; but lesser men, wearing a strap about their waists,
will yet have a handsome buckle and a fanciful pendant of metal guarding
the loose end of the strap.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Henry, Prince of Wales, and Occleve the Poet
(c. 1410). (From Arundel MS. 38.)]
However fantastic the fashions of this or any other ages, folk of the
middling sort will avoid the extremes. From the Knight to the Reve, no
man of Chaucer's company calls to us by the fantasy of his clothing. The
Knight himself rides in his fustian _gipoun_, the grime of his habergeon
upon it, although his son's short gown, the gayest garment at the
Tabard, had long and wide sleeves and is embroidered with flowers like
any mead. A coat and hood of green mark the Yeoman, who has a silver
Christopher brooch for ornament. The Merchant is in motley stuff, his
beaver hat from Flanders and his clasped boots taking Chaucer's eye, as
do the _anlas_ and silken _gipser_ which hang at the rich Franklin's
belt. As for the London burgesses, their knife-chapes, girdles and
pouches are in clean silver. The Shipman wears his knife in a lanyard
about his neck, as his fellows do to this day, and his coat is of coarse
falding to the knee. The Wife of Bath has the wimple below her broad hat
and rides in a foot mantle about her hips. Poorer men's dress is on the
Reve and the Ploughman, the one in a long _surcote_ of sky-blue and the
other in the _tabard_ which we may recognize as that smock-frock which
goes down the ages with little change.
15th century.
In the 15th century the middle ages run out. Fashions in this period
become, if not more fantastic, more various. Its earlier years see men
of rank still inclined to the rich modes of the last age: Harry of
Monmouth, drawn about 1410 by an artist who shows him as Occleve's
patron, wears a blue gown which might have passed muster at the court of
Richard II. for its trailing skirts and its long sleeves, their
slittered edges turned back (fig. 32). A strange fancy at this time was
the hanging of silver bells on the dress. One William Staunton, in 1409,
seeing in a vision at St Patrick's Purgatory the fate of earth's proud
ones, is exact to note that in the place of torment the jags in men's
clothes turn to adders, that women's trailing skirts are burnt over
their heads, and that those men whose garments are overset with silver
gingles and bells have burning nails of fire driven through each gingle.
As for the chaplets of gold, of pearls and precious stones, they turn
into nails of iron on which the fiends hammer.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--The Squire. (From the Ellesmere MS. of the
_Canterbury Tales_.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--An English Squire and his Wife. (From a brass
of 1409.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--English Dress, c. 1433. (From Harl. MS. 2278.)]
The common habit of a well-clad man in the first half of this century is
a loose tunic, lined with fur, or edged with fur at neck, wrist and
skirt. At first the sleeves are long and bag-like, like to the Richard
II. sleeve but drawn in to the wrist, where early examples are fastened
with a button. A shorter tunic is worn below, whose tight sleeves are
seen beyond the furred edge of the upper garment, mittens being
sometimes attached to them. Over the shoulders the hood is thrown, or,
in foul weather, a hood and cloak. The gown is girdled at the waist with
a girdle from which hangs the anelace or baselard (fig. 34). Shoes are
pointed. Hats and caps are seen in many shapes, but the most remarkable
is the developed form of that head-dress which the 14th-century man
seems to have achieved by putting his pate into the face-hole of his
hood and twisting its liripipe round his brows. In the 15th century the
effect is produced with a thick, turban-like roll of stuff from the top
of which hung down on one side folds of cloth coming nigh to the
shoulder, and on the other the liripipe broadened and lengthened to 4 or
5 ft. of a narrower folded cloth. As the century advances the bagpipe
sleeves shrink in size and the tunic skirts are shortened (fig. 35). The
old habit of going armed with anelace or baselard dies away in spite of
troublous times. In the middle of the century the tunic is often no
longer than a modern frock-coat, its sleeves little wider than those of
a modern overcoat. Dress, indeed, becomes at this time convenient and
attractive to our modern eyes. The last quarter of the century sees a
new and important change. The tunic or gown, which was the garment of
ceremony answering at once to our dress coats and frock coats, runs down
to the feet. An act of 1463 ordered that coats should at least cover the
buttocks, but fashion achieved suddenly what law failed to enforce. Men
who had polled their hair short allowed it to grow and hang over the
shoulders. The belt carries the purse or gipciere more commonly,
although weapons are rarely seen, and it is notable that, as the
Reformation approaches, the fashion of wearing a large "pair of beads"
in the belt becomes a very common one. Last of all, the shoes change
their shape. The reign of Edward IV. had seen the pointed toes as
iniquitously long as ever the 14th century saw them. Even the long
riding boot has the curving point, although otherwise much resembling
the jack-boot of the 18th century. But after Bosworth Field the soles
broaden, the point shrinks back and then disappears, and the footprint
becomes shovel-shaped.
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--A Gentleman and his Wife. (From a brass of
1435.)]
Women's dress in the 15th century often follows the man's fashion of the
furred gown, the skirts being lengthened for all difference. But the
close-bodied and close-sleeved gown, with skirts broadening into many
folds below the hips, is often seen with the long and plain cloak drawn
with a cord at the breast, widows wearing this dress with the _barbe_, a
crimped cloth of linen drawn up under the chin and ears and covering the
collar-bone. With the barbe went the kerchief, draping head and
shoulders. The bossed cauls of the earlier head-dress, drawn high on
either side of the head until face and head-dress took the shape of a
heart, are characteristic of the age (fig. 36). In some cases the cauls
are drawn out at the sides to the form of a pair of bulls' horns or of a
mitre set sideways. In the time of Edward IV. we have a popular
head-dress to which has been given the name of the butterfly. The hair
in its caul is pulled backward, and wires set in it allow the ends of a
cambric veil to float behind like the wings of a butterfly settled on a
flower.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--A Gentleman and his Wife. (From a brass of
1508.)]
[Illustration: Drawn from a photo by Mansell.